Wind Group's Celebration

Sparked by the children's interest and the other groups' generous parties, we spent a couple of days preparing for a big party of our own. The Earth group and the Fire group each invited the Wind group to a party, so the children chose to be thankful to the other groups by hosting a party of their own and inviting the other groups.

The planning was simple since the children already knew what they wanted to do: 

* Cake and pancakes 

* Decorations

* Poster and invitations 

* Games

* Fruits, vegetables and other snacks 

* Goody bags with a thank-you note inside.

The children showed enthusiasm and dedication during the preparation. They painted little cards, decorated the poster, thought of messages that they wanted to share with the others, went shopping, tidied the centre and much more. 

Their sweet little minds made sure that everyone received something and that the party was fun and enjoyable. 

The children were very friendly and included everyone in their celebration. Kind, polite words and cheerful conversations took place.

"The Big Block of Chocolate" by Janet Slater Redhead

While reading "The Big Block of Chocolate", we recorded the ways that the animals reacted when they found the block of chocolate. The animals, although in different situations, all planned to eat it by themselves, secretly. In the end, after the chocolate was found and hidden numerous times, it started to melt. An ant happened to pass by it, and without hesitation, the ant invited all the other ants to come over and share the chocolate. 

In the end, the children noticed that the animals who wanted to eat the chocolate secretly, ended up with no chocolate at all. The generous ant was the one who enjoyed the chocolate along with the other ants. 

At the end of the story, after our long and thoughtful discussions, the children in the wind group shared a block of chocolate. There were enough pieces for the children in the wind group, but not enough to share with all the other groups. 

Grace tried in many different ways to find a good solution:

"let's break our piece in half." (still not enough for everyone)

"let's take a bite each" (not possible, because of the no sharing something that you put in your mouth rule)

"let's just not eat chocolate at all" (is that really fair?) 

"buy an extra chocolate and share after" (the store is pretty far and we don't have a car to drive there)

and then the idea came!! 

"LET'S SHARE OTHER THINGS FROM OUR LUNCH KITS"  

Angela "I have no snacks. Actually, I have some apples. I'll share five pieces." 

Kesler "I'll share my rice cracker" 

Grace "I'll share my cheese crackers"

Alexia "I'll share my chocolate crackers"

Janet "I don't want to eat anything, so I will think some more if I want to share something from my lunch kit." 

The children all initiated this sharing idea and they all tried to be fair to all the children at school. Caring and being principled are the traits that came to mind right away. There is definitely give and take in generosity and people can work together to come up with solutions that are advantageous for everyone.

Esme wasn't here on Thursday and she would love to share snacks with everyone at school. Her idea was to all get together and plan a big generosity celebration. 

The children all happily agreed!! 

Art on Fridays - "The traveling adventure of a marble"

"...he finally came out with a single marble. But the boy who received it smiled so brightly in return, the king went back for more things." An excerpt from the story "The Quiltmaker's gift" by Jeff Brumbeau

That single marble was the beginning of experiencing the marvellous feeling of giving and sharing happiness with another. 

The children brainstormed ideas of what one could do with a marble and the list went on and on.

Grace "Share it with others." 

Kesler "Give it away to someone that likes marbles."

Angela "My brother would love to play with it." 

Grace "We could build a marble game." 

Kesler "Matthew and I like to play with the marble game."

One way of using marbles that the children didn't think of is for painting. The pictures demonstrate their enthusiasm when it came to experiencing this new technique.

Generosity and its broad perspective

For some children, generosity is all about giving, receiving and being kind to each other, but after reading the story "The Quiltmaker's Gift" by Jeff Brumbeau, the children's perspective changed. They recognized that sometimes being generous doesn't necessarily mean that you need to give/receive something material, but that it includes the joy behind a generous act. In some situations, even the smallest gesture can mean so much to people around us and the only thing we might receive in return is the feeling of being happy and thankful that we were able to spread happiness through kind and generous decisions. 

Our ongoing project during this unit is to draw a picture at the end of each group time of a time when we were generous or a way that we can show our generosity. Here are a couple of generous acts that the children came up with. 

Angela "Get everybody together to celebrate. Have a party." 

Esme " Organize a puppet show and invite everyone to watch."

Andrea "Share some snacks. Like I share with my baby. I share toys and food and baby is always happy." 

Janet "Make a present and give it to someone in your family." 

Kesler "Give something from home that you don't need/use anymore."

Alexia "I share toys at school with all the children."

Enjoy,

Anamaria

We are generous beings

Transdisciplinary Theme:  Who we are

Central Idea

Being generous can help us connect with one another.

When asked what "Generosity" means to them, this is what the children knew prior to any explorations and discussions.

GENEROSITY MEANS:

* give somebody a present

* sharing

* be kind

* have a big and kind heart

* give somebody something they want or something that you don't use anymore

* sharing toys with my sister

* giving some of your time to someone else

* singing

* using manner and being polity

The following key concepts, lines of inquiry and questions will guide our discoveries and discussions in the next seven weeks.  

Reflection: We are generous beings.

Perspective:  People have different understandings of generosity.

Connection: There is give and take in generosity

Teacher's questions:

T1.  How can we be generous?

T2.  What is generosity?

T3.  How does generosity make you feel?